Rethinking Kids’ Grades
I still remember the day my fourth grader brought home her first C. She’d always been a sharp student with a voracious appetite for learning, and the grade contrasted with her usual steady stream of A’s and B’s. Of course my first reaction was to round up the troops, so to speak, and figure out what the problem was. My husband and I met with her in her room to discuss the rogue grade and why it was there along with mostly B’s, with none of the usual A’s in sight.
She told us she didn’t understand what the teacher was trying to teach, and that she’d liked her other teacher — one who’d retired midyear and been gone after winter break — better. I took these statements with a
